J Trust, the Japanese financial services firm five percent owned by Goldman Sachs, has made an offer to purchase Atlus parent company Index, currently up for grabs.

The company, according to Bloomberg, aims to use cash raised through a record rights offering to fund takeover bids, including Index, as part of a client-boosting strategy. During an interview, J Trust CEO Nobuyoshi Fujisawa said the company can spend as much as 130 billion yen (approx. $1.3 billion) in cash on buyouts without seeking external financing.

Purchasing a bankrupt company wouldn’t be new to J Trust. The firm purchased failed consumer lenders Lopro Corp. in 2010 and Takefuji Corp. in 2012.

As reported last week, about 20 buyers, including Sega Sammy Holdings, have shown interest in purchasing the Persona and Shin Megami Tensei developer’s parent, and Index aims to reach a sales agreement by the end of August. Offers to purchase the company have reached 20 billion yen, Bloomberg said.

Lopro Corp is no longer actively traded on any major stock exchange. They did unsecured loans and acquisitions. Takefuji’s failure, the second-biggest in Japan this year after Japan Airlines Corp., comes three months after a law went into effect prohibiting consumer lenders from charging interest higher than 20 percent or extending loans that exceed a third of a borrower’s annual income.

MosquitoLemon

Oh no, Atlus is doomed!

Learii

I never heard of J Trust

Budgiecat

I own it

Learii

oh really then what games do you guys made? lol

Pyrofrost

J Trust has nothing to do with video game development. They work as a financial, real estate, and a “holding” company.

Honestly, almost ANYTHING is better than Atlus becoming 1st party for either Ninty or Sony. Anyone who wants them to become 1st party is just a drone in my eyes.
They stay 3rd party, everyone gets Atlus’ games.

Alex

YES, Stay 3rd Party. I’m glad someone else hopes that for them.

AnimusVox

Agreed. I like Nintendo and Sony but 3rd party is definitely the best choice, so long as it isn’t Sega.

https://www.youtube.com/user/GamingHeroTetsuya TetsuyaHikari

I never really thought about it that way, but you’re right. I concur.

Budgiecat

Use your head

LordKaiser

He’s using it.

Bobby Jennings

You didn’t? I’m surprised….greatly.

https://www.youtube.com/user/GamingHeroTetsuya TetsuyaHikari

Well, I was looking at it from a different perspective. I’m sorry that J Trust never entered the picture.

Bobby Jennings

Souka.

GetOffMy_Lawn

Totally agree. I love both Nintendo and Sony, but I can’t even imagine not being able to play Atlus titles on my 3DS, or Persona 5 being on anything beside PS3/PS4.

confused_wanderer

Well I mean it wouldn’t be completely a loss if atlus is bought by Nintendo or Sony. Atleast peope who only have one console could get to play their games.

draconian139

It depends as far as I’m concerned. I’d rather them go to Nintendo/Sony than someone that would fail to localize as many games or otherwise interfere in their creative works. Of course I’d prefer a 3rd party that doesn’t mess with them and continues to localize most of their games but the 3rd party aspect is secondary to all the rest.

Adrian Duran

problem is, I wouldn’t trust many 3rd party companies with Atlus, though if one exists I whole heartdly agree

for instance, I’d rather play all Atlus games on a Nintendo/Sony system than have to export 50% of them from Japan

Ivan Junior

In J Trust We Trust.

Dark_N11

Atlus make too many games for nintendo
can’t wait for 3rd party to buy them!

DesmaX

That would be perfect, actually.

Someone who doesn’t work for videogames woudn’t interfere with them

Arcana Gear

This one it’s a good choice, isn’t a video game company so it wont make ATLUS change anything, isn’t owned or have close relationship with one of the big three, so i guess everyone would be happy. =D

PhoenixAutomatic~♪(๑ᴖ◡ᴖ๑)♪~

This is good news. I hope J Trust acquires Atlus!

Luna Kazemaru

Why is everyone suddenly wanting them to buy atlus I’m sorry i would find it odd if someone just bought them and has little or nothing to do with gaming.

“It’s a good idea to buy companies that do communication
and application businesses for smartphones and tap their client
bases to market our financial services,”

yea that doesn’t sound ok to me..

DesmaX

Index also had nothing to do with videogames

Luna Kazemaru

just forget it you clearly miss the point of what i was posting -_-

Pyrofrost

What was the point, if I may ask?

Kobracon

“Why is everyone suddenly wanting them to buy atlus I’m sorry i would find it odd if someone just bought them and has little or nothing to do with gaming.”

He was replying to this. If that wasn’t the point, then I assume its the smartphone thing. It doesn’t sound that bad. Heck out of everything, I wouldn’t mind a Persona card game or something related on the smartphones.

Don’t go thinking they’ll JUST do smartphone stuff. They’re buying Index as a whole, which holds more than just Atlus.

LordKaiser

I hope that you’re right.

Sevyne

Then you obviously didn’t make your point very clearly.

http://Xcite79.1up.com/ Keegs79

You think they are the only ones? Who do you think started up Dead Island or bought up some of THQ? THQ developers werent bought by just Sega and such. Who do you think owns Saint’s Row? It is BEST if it is them and not a another publisher. They would be more independent than being dictated by another publisher that also develops games.

You seem to know little to not realize that this isn’t uncommon practice and you was even given an example by someone else.

LordKaiser

Neither to me

Ni ~Algidus~

“The firm purchased failed consumer lenders Lopro Corp. in 2010 and Takefuji Corp. in 2012.”
and how these two companies are doing now?

http://insanechronos.tumblr.com/ InsaneChronos

It will be Index #2.

Warboss Aohd

who?

LordKaiser

After reading that link…. I don’t like it 1 bit. It seems that the top buyer is on phones thing.

罪罰

why the fuck would they want ATLUS
they’re a fucking real state corporation

the fuck are you guys smoking

confused_wanderer

Its simply a profit deal. J trust thinks that once atlus’s financial situation is resolved they will be able to make them money. My guess anyways.

Pyrofrost

They are attempting to buy Index Corp, not just Atlus.

Also, they are a financial, real estate, and a ‘holding’ company.
That last term fits this situation perfectly; as a ‘holding’ company is a company that is in the business of being shareholders.
They aren’t ‘only’ real estate.

http://twitter.com/GNPixie Lynx

Two words:

Harmony Gold.

Djkarl Pierre

That would be cool if Nintendo or Sony were to buy Atlus but I prefer the fact stay third party. So how about third party buying them out instead. Konami, Namco, Arcs-system, Square. That’s right I said Square you want to fight about it? >:D

https://www.youtube.com/user/GamingHeroTetsuya TetsuyaHikari

Here, you’ll need this. *tosses you my flame shield*

Pyrofrost

I would honestly rather Square have it than Konami, NamcoBandai, SEGA, or Capcom.

Zancrow

SE? So that we’ll get a ton of SMT And Persona iOS games? : p

Pyrofrost

Well, firstly. SE isn’t the only gaming company pushing the whole smartphone thing. They are just the only ones who are really in the spotlight about it, because they are only one of the biggest gaming dev in Japan.
Let’s be real, SE is one of MANY meddling in the smartphone business. After all, it’s really lucrative.

I don’t see where people get this idea that, “Oh no, SE is the only company making smartphone games.” They’re not the only ones, they’re not one of the few. All major development studios in Japan deal in smartphone games and they deal a lot on smartphone games.

I know hating/bashing SE is the current fad right now, and doing so makes you cool; but lets not get it twisted.

Second, it’s going to be more that gaming houses after Index. After all, Atlus isn’t the only thing up for grabs here.

Fact is though, that SE nowadays only makes bad decisions and when the new Tomb Raider sold like 3 million units they said it’s not enough.
So yeah, fuck’em.
Maybe take someone with a realistic view on the gaming industry.

Pyrofrost

I’m not even really defending SE, just stating the fact that they aren’t the only ones in the smart phone software development business. Guess who else deals smart phone games: Namco Bandai, Tecmo Koei, Capcom, Konami, Sega, GungHo, and etc.
Need I continue? I think I will~
ATLUS HAS MADE OVER 30 SMARTPHONE GAMES! Many of them MegaTen games, with some Personas thrown in there. Can’t blame it on Index either, they started making them before Index got them.

None of that really matters anyway. They both have put out their fair share of quality games, and they both still do; however, so much SE bashing goes on here, and sarcasm doesn’t exactly translate well without tone-of-voice. So you will have to forgive me for not being able to read between the lines.

Also, I’m going to fix this for you:

“It is my opinion, that SE nowadays only makes bad decisions and when the new Tomb Raider sold like 3 million units they said it’s not enough.
So yeah, fuck’em.
Maybe take someone who shares my view on the gaming industry.”

No thanks are necessary mate, that one is on the house.

**Seriously though, I have nothing against you mate. So please don’t take anything personally.

Zancrow

I don’t know why you have a problem with SE bashing though.
Many people are disappointed by their recent actions, so it’s no wonder some lose faith in them.
SE need to get their shit together.

Pyrofrost

Oh, people are completely within their rights to bash.

My only problem with the SE bashing is the fact that almost 100% of it is people simply not getting what they want. Not really legitimate grievances of being on the receiving end of crooked business practices.
It’s not like they have stopped making quality games imo. I can’t think of any completely shitty games that they’ve developed in recent memory. Not outside of the FFXIV debacle 3 years ago.

It’s not like they’ve really been using crooked business practices. What they do is no more cooked than what all the other devs (including Atlus) working with mobile, gree, and mobage have done.

I mean, it’s not like they’ve done stuff on the level of Capcom’s offenses.

The main reason for the whole “sales not enough” statement for Tomb Raider and Hitman is quite simple. Gaming development has changed, so has the cost. They allowed the budget to be run up higher than what could be reasonably expected to make a return. Other companies have been making the same mistakes.
They weren’t blaming the fans, as much as they were stating that they didn’t sell enough to get a return. If you sell millions and don’t get a decent return, that’s on you; and the devs know that, I’m sure of it.

Pyrofrost

I want to know who the other potential buyers are.

Also, everyone please keep in mind, J Trust is not simply trying to buy Atlus. They are trying to buy Index as a whole.

my Japanese is rudimentary at best, but isn’t this just a list of people that Index owes money to?

I can’t imagine Fuji TV or Gakken Publishing would want to buy Atlus.

Mikari✘

I don’t know, I was told it is a list of the companies interested in buying Index.

Well, Sega is in the list.

Ouch My Head Said Dionysus

It’s illegal to publish the list of bidders. This webpage repeatedly uses ‘loan’ and ‘lending’ in conjunction to the listed companies. It is known that Index owes millions to many different companies.

http://www.psvitadirect.com/ Kurisu Makise

Well we know SEGA’s in the runnings, J Trust as well. I’m afraid some of the options might just be investment firms making a bid mostly. It’d be nice if some more media companies took interest though. For sure, if Nintendo or Sony were bidding we’d already know, so it’s probably safe to erase either off the list unless they kept themselves confidential. I will say, judging by how much J Trust is willing to spend, I can’t imagine them being beaten out, heck I don’t even think Index is worth the full amount they’re capable of spending.

Pyrofrost

These ‘holding companies’ love picking up multi-media trends while they’re hot, and Index had their paws in a few of them.
As well as being in involved in communication and information technology, which is also a really hot thing.

I would also like to say that J Trust’s statement could also be one giant bluff to ward-off competitors; essentially making the buy-out cheaper. It says that they “can” spend as much as 130 billion Yen, without seeking outside assistance; not that they are “willing.”

That was possibly nothing more than a penis waving maneuver. My point…it’s not over till it’s over. ^_~

http://www.psvitadirect.com/ Kurisu Makise

This is true but hey, that’s some confidence; it’s admirable.

Kobracon

As long as Atlus gets to keep making SMT games unabated, then I don’t care who picks them up. Just save them. Someone!

Pyrofrost

Thank you very much. That is the most important thing with this situation.

Adrian Duran

as long as it’s not Microsoft (which is impossible since American companies can’t buy Japanese ones, but you get the joke)

PrinceHeir

i just hope Atlus gets to make games with no fuss :P

still i’m holding out for Gung Ho and Marvelous!

shogunknight

That-is a lot of money, and they want to buy the whole corporation. This may definitely include atlus in the takeover. Well, the final status report would be revealed to everyone by end of this month.

http://twitter.com/RaiuLyn Raiu

As long as Atlus is happy with it, it doesn’t matter who buys Atlus…

SOLOmio

if they want client boosting just give the fans P5 trailer and a raidou kuzunoha vs something game.

Sae-Won Yoon

So Atlus does the usual what they’ve been doing?
Fair enough, we get Persona 5 and what not.